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1938 - Nanango, Yowie Report

Location: Nanango/ Queensland

Event: Yowie Encounter

Date: End of Summer 1938/39

Terrain: Heavy vine scrub backing onto thick forest

Witness: Clyde Shepherdson, who at the time of his Yowie sighting was 13 years old, lived on a farm near Nanango. He now resides in Ipswich. The memory of his experience which was over 60 years ago now is still as fresh in his mind as the day it all happened. He speaks with Paul Cropper of his experience………

It was a cloudy and damp day. I was out with a friend shooting wallabies with the 22 behind the Tarong Power Station. The scrub out there was pretty thick back in those days, so you had to be extra quiet to be able to sneak up on the buggers to get a good shot in. Anyway, we’re creeping through the vines and stop suddenly to look up and see this great big hairy thing standing with it’s back hard up against a tree about 20 ft away from us.

I think he got a bigger fright than we did. He threw his arms up both sides and just stood there snarling and growling at us, with the claws curled over like it wanted to reach out and grab at us. We thought it best to just get out of there as quick as possible, and even though we had our guns with us, we didn’t even entertain the thought of shooting at it for some reason. So we started walking away nice and slowly so as not to excite the thing and have it give chase, and it watched us from its position with its back against the tree until we left the area.

The colour of the fur was a light brown/yellowish rusty shade, like a camel, with a length of about 3 inches long. We referred to it as “the yellow hairy thing” whenever we spoke of it. It stood around 6ft and was rather broad across the shoulders with no neck. Looking well nourished, I remember seeing fangs that were long and pointed and big pointy ears.

The nose was flattish, along with the face but very broad also, like a stone age man. Back in those days, our farm backed onto some pretty wild country. Land that many few people had not yet set foot in, with real wild animals living off it. These days we still own the farm and I haven’t heard any other stories like mine from that area.

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Clyde Shepherdson: My mate and I used to go hunting "red back scrub wallaby" quite often. This particular day, it was cloudy and damp, but whenever we went into the scrub after the wallaby, we knew we had to be quiet, as a broken twig would scare them off, and we wouldn't see anything all day.Well we had got about 2 miles into the scrub, and it would have been just after lunch, as the sun was high, and we had full sunlight, as it came through the clouds. There were lots of vines, and we had to bend them down to get through them.

Well we parted these vines, and there it was, this big yellow thing (a rusty yellow - sort of like a camel), standing up by a tree. As it sensed us, it put its two arms up above it's head and growled/snarled at us. It's palms were facing toward us, and the hands were all bent, like it was about to reach out and claw us. We were about 20 feet away from it. The hands were a dark skin, hairless.

It would have been 6 foot tall or more, very broad across the shoulders, and fairly wide hairy legs. The hair was fur like, and fairly rough looking. It had a broad forehead, and a flat nose, the skin was darker on the face, but no hair, sort of like a stone-age man.

It was definitely more shaped like a person, just a lot broader across the shoulders, and very muscled. It had a short neck., and big ears were sticking out through the hair. The hair on its head was scruffy, but the same length all over it's body.

We slowly edged into the bush sideways always keeping an eye on it. It followed us with its eyes, slowly moving around the tree, it's arms were still above it's head. Once we were back into the bush away, and could only just see it, it dropped it's arms and disappeared behind the tree. We turned and ran to the edge of the scrub.

**Clyde wanted to tell us of this encounter before he died, as he had told nobody besides his wife in almost 60 years. Sadly Clyde has now passed**